Rioters with Trump flag and fire extinguisher in the Capitol, near the Senate chamber. Win McNamee/Getty Images
We passed an uneasy and chilly night in Lisbon; it's 8:30 in the morning and I am on the edge of tears. The electoral votes from Vermont are being certified in a joint session of Congress. Joe Biden has passed the 270-vote threshold and will be the next President of the United States. But these are not tears of joy for the Constitutional process, they are tears of severe sorrow and shame for the attempted coup we witnessed yesterday: images of rioters inside the US Capitol Building laughing, vandalizing, taking selfies.
Last night, blood was spilled in the Capitol. Four people are dead.
Now, we are watching Rep Gohmert's objection to the electoral vote certificate from Wisconsin, continuing to add fuel to sedition. This sedition has an identity, a brand name, and it is clearly visible on the hats, on the flags, on the body armor, and in the language of the participants: Trump.
Now, we are watching Rep Gohmert's objection to the electoral vote certificate from Wisconsin, continuing to add fuel to sedition. This sedition has an identity, a brand name, and it is clearly visible on the hats, on the flags, on the body armor, and in the language of the participants: Trump.
It hardly needs to be said that after inciting the rioters earlier in the day at a rally, Trump made only the slightest suggestion to stem the violence – while restating lies about election fraud, he tweeted for the rioters to "stay peaceful". After hours of rioting and clear video evidence of extensive vandalism and violence, Trump released a short video finally asking the rioters to leave the Capitol: "So go home. We love you. You're very special."
Today, there are mass resignations at the White House and talk of the invocation of the twenty-fifth amendment. Even Facebook and Twitter have locked Trump's accounts. By any legal definition, he has broken his oath of office; by every practical measure, he is no longer serving as President.
Shameful.
Trump once referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries as "sh*thole countries". I wonder what the leaders of those countries are saying about the US now: the leader of a domestic terrorist movement is President.
Lost in Wednesday night's insanity, Democrats Rev Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won the run-off elections in Georgia. Democrats will take majority control of the Senate when Kamala Harris is sworn in as Vice President. These election wins mark a huge political shift for Georgia, and offer a tribute to Stacey Abrams' ground work and a just legacy for Rep John Lewis' life's work – a few drops of hope in a sea of trouble.
cases: 87,704,194 global • 21,857,616 USA • 446,606 Portugal
deaths: 1,892,689 global • 369,990 USA • 7,377 Portugal
This harrowing compilation from ITV takes us inside the insurrection (age-restricted). These are the people to whom Trump sends his love and calls 'very special'. Here is ITV's Robert Moore:
This morning, the President spoke to the crowd in front of the White House, repeating his false claim that the election was stolen. The cost of that rhetoric is increasingly clear, as crowds tonight are still swirling around Congress, and America's long journey as a stable democracy appears to be in genuine doubt.
UPDATE (Jan 9th): Maybe the best summing-up of the events of January 6th, from the PBS Newshour podcast, "America, Interrupted", here is Yamiche Alcindor:
The thing I'm probably going to most remember is how much the consequences of President Trump's rhetoric – he didn't have to deal with. It was surreal to be at the White House and realize the stillness, to realize how safe we were on the White House complex. How barricaded the President was as he could watch on TV the consequences of his conspiracy theories, the consequences of him egging people on and rallying them up. And then abandoning them to do what they may with the US Capitol.
We've seen this President for years play with fire, and we've seen people close to the President, who people would say should know better, enable him. And he made people feel entitled to be able to break into the US Capitol. In the moment where his words were having physical manifestations, the President didn't have to at all deal with those physical manifestations.
And when you think about the world, you think about – I'm going to say it – dictators, and tyrants, and authoritarianism. You realize that in a place like Haiti, I think about, there are dictators who wreak havoc on people and then they can go and live in Paris. Or they can go and be somewhere else where they don't have to deal with their consequences.
President Trump did not have to deal with the consequences. If someone was going to die, President Trump's life was never at risk. And that to me is the thing that sticks with me: power in the wrong hands, power in the hands of someone who turns it on a mob of people, who incites them to do these things, it can corrupt, and it can be really really deadly.
And that can happen in the United States. This is us; this is who Americans can be if they are pushed and if they are given information and if they are not at all told the right thing and taught how to lose.
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